Karl Rove and Katrina

In the post below I suggested that the Bush response to Katrina was in part because Karl Rove was preoccupied. In the comments section Carla of Preemptive Karma wrote:

Karl is preoccupied. Didn't you hear? He's heading up the reconstruction of New Orleans.

I wish I was joking.

David Froomkin wrote today;

"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort."

Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.

That is Rove's hallmark.

It's obvious that Bush would go to his chief image spinner in a case like this but look at how well Rove has done since the election. He was unable to spin the dismantling of Social Security, one has to assume he was involved in the Terri Schiavo fiasco and what was he doing or thinking the first few days after Katrina? The spinmeister has either lost his touch or is preoccupied with something else. Could that something else be Fitzgerald's probe of the Plame issue?